Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
The RNC Files: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak
In what is the largest known data exposure of its kind, UpGuards Cyber Risk Team can now confirm that a misconfigured database containing the sensitive personal details of over 198 million American voters was left exposed to the internet by a firm working on behalf of the Republican National Committee (RNC) in their efforts to elect Donald Trump. The data, which was stored in a publicly accessible cloud server owned by Republican data firm Deep Root Analytics, included 1.1 terabytes of entirely unsecured personal information compiled by DRA and at least two other Republican contractors, TargetPoint Consulting, Inc. and Data Trust. In total, the personal information of potentially near all of Americas 200 million registered voters was exposed, including names, dates of birth, home addresses, phone numbers, and voter registration details, as well as data described as modeled voter ethnicities and religions.
This disclosure dwarfs previous breaches of electoral data in Mexico (also discovered by Vickery) and the Philippines by well over 100 million more affected individuals, exposing the personal information of over sixty-one percent of the entire US population.
The data exposure provides insight into the inner workings of the Republican National Committees $100 million data operation for the 2016 presidential election, an undertaking of monumental scope and painstaking detail launched in the wake of Mitt Romneys loss in 2012. Deep Root Analytics, TargetPoint, and Data Trustall Republican data firmswere among the RNC-hired outfits working as the core of the Trump campaigns 2016 general election data team, relied upon in the GOP effort to influence potential voters and accurately predict their behavior. The RNC data repository would ultimately acquire roughly 9.5 billion data points regarding three out of every five Americans, scoring 198 million potential US voters on their likely political preferences using advanced algorithmic modeling across forty-eight different categories.
Spreadsheets containing this accumulated datalast updated around the January 2017 presidential inaugurationconstitute a treasure trove of political data and modeled preferences used by the Trump campaign. This data was also exposed in the misconfigured database and had been for an unknown period of time.
https://www.upguard.com/breaches/the-rnc-files
This disclosure dwarfs previous breaches of electoral data in Mexico (also discovered by Vickery) and the Philippines by well over 100 million more affected individuals, exposing the personal information of over sixty-one percent of the entire US population.
The data exposure provides insight into the inner workings of the Republican National Committees $100 million data operation for the 2016 presidential election, an undertaking of monumental scope and painstaking detail launched in the wake of Mitt Romneys loss in 2012. Deep Root Analytics, TargetPoint, and Data Trustall Republican data firmswere among the RNC-hired outfits working as the core of the Trump campaigns 2016 general election data team, relied upon in the GOP effort to influence potential voters and accurately predict their behavior. The RNC data repository would ultimately acquire roughly 9.5 billion data points regarding three out of every five Americans, scoring 198 million potential US voters on their likely political preferences using advanced algorithmic modeling across forty-eight different categories.
Spreadsheets containing this accumulated datalast updated around the January 2017 presidential inaugurationconstitute a treasure trove of political data and modeled preferences used by the Trump campaign. This data was also exposed in the misconfigured database and had been for an unknown period of time.
https://www.upguard.com/breaches/the-rnc-files
InfoView thread info, including edit history
TrashPut this thread in your Trash Can (My DU » Trash Can)
BookmarkAdd this thread to your Bookmarks (My DU » Bookmarks)
4 replies, 2519 views
ShareGet links to this post and/or share on social media
AlertAlert this post for a rule violation
PowersThere are no powers you can use on this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
ReplyReply to this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
Rec (10)
ReplyReply to this post
4 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
The RNC Files: Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak (Original Post)
SecularMotion
Jun 2017
OP
KT2000
(20,587 posts)1. out of control
Our democracy is in cyberspace now. Do the Democrats have anything to compare or withstand this intrusion?
flying_wahini
(6,646 posts)2. Thank god it wasn't our people! Hahaha just kidding. Kinda.
N/t
bobalew
(322 posts)3. It's data including Damn Near ALL of us US voters...
This the same database technique that allowed the Republicans to win the first Nixon election, run and administrated by none other than a then young Karl Rove, who used IBM computers to create the GOP get out the Vote effort. They've been doing this for that long.
Iplayoneontv
(77 posts)4. Augh
It brings me some joy that I confuse the hell out of computer analysis everywhere but this is why I fake name everything.